Flash fiction #2: Gods of the Party

Artemis, like all goddesses of the
hunt, tended to be a little too fond
of camping. (Wikipedia)

One of the groups that gets mentioned in “Fairy Godmothers, Inc.” is the National Association for Retired but Still Mighty Gods and Goddesses (NARSMGG). They don’t get much play in the book, but the idea just fascinated me.

Gods of the Party

by Jenniffer Wardell

They let Hephaestus and Aphrodite plan the Winter Solstice party.

Hephaestus was a god of building things, and unlike most of the pantheon knew how to plan for things that didn’t involve smiting. And goddesses of love and beauty always knew how to throw great parties, even if it was just so they’d have the proper setting to shine in. Also, most of the club members couldn’t remember hearing the two scream at each other very often, which was a rare thing among married deities and always a plus.

(What no one said out loud was that they were quickly running out of options. A giant snake broke through the wall and crashed every party Odin and his family tried to throw, and Coyote couldn’t be trusted to stick to a budget. Everybody agreed that Osiris was a nice guy, but after last year everyone also agreed that gods of the dead should never be left in charge of party planning. Kali was a fun girl, especially for a goddess of destruction, but she tended to throw chairs.)

It turned out, though, that the reason Hephaestus and Aphrodite rarely screamed at each other was that they were rarely in the same kingdom at the same time.

“I’m not building you a new sound system! The old one works just fine!”

“It’s fine for normal gods, you lump, but I need something as magnificent as I am!”

“Well, whatever you come up with had better be pretty small, or there won’t be room for both it and your swollen head!”

“Ares thinks my head is gorgeous!”

“You idiot, your head isn’t what he’s looking at!”

In the end, the only way to avoid bloodshed was to have two smaller parties. The quieter gods went over to Hephaestus’s place for hot chocolate and a cozy forge fire, while the wilder gods went out drinking with Aphrodite.

The fact that the club building was still standing at the end of it all automatically made it the most successful party the gods had ever thrown.  Hephaestus and Aphrodite were unanimously voted as the club’s permanent party planners.

Well, almost unanimously. But there was no pleasing even a godess's mother-in-law.